Pages

Monday, February 4, 2013

Bouncer Post #124

Title: ENVISION

Genre:
YA science fiction

Word
Count: 104,000

Query:

When
Naia Imrie, daughter of the world’s foremost neurotechnologist, witnesses her
father’s murder, she believes his death is revenge for inventing the ports,
revolutionary implants that transform human brains into computers.

And
now his killers are after her.

Naia
heeds her father’s dying words and flees to EnvisiTech, the powerful company
responsible for marketing port technology. But Evan, the secretive leader of
the anti-port resistance, kidnaps her. He claims EnvisiTech is corrupt and that
her father was involved in a twisted plot to control humanity. The resistance
insists the ports are harmful, causing devastating physical symptoms and
opening the door for memory tampering and mind manipulation. As if these
accusations aren’t sinister enough, the situation compounds with the emergence
of DELETE, an enigmatic terrorist group that infects port users with a fatal
digital virus.

While
struggling to come to terms with her father’s death and true motivations, Naia
must determine whom to trust. But it isn’t as simple as choosing a side. An
unexpected discovery reveals her father’s legacy: the means to take down the
enemy, which makes her both the ultimate threat and the ultimate target. She
must find her place in the fight and face her growing feelings for Evan, whose
real identity could be one of the greatest obstacles of all.

In
a world where it’s possible to inload anything into your brain, it’s hard to
discern the truth, and with tangled connections everywhere—synaptic,
electronic, between people and sides—making the wrong connection could be
deadly.

First
250:

Perhaps
something interrupts the stillness of the hall, a faint sound surfacing through
the music in my head, or a slight stirring of air. Maybe it’s the shiver that
tingles up my spine and all the way to the nerve endings in my fingertips, or
the simple fact that the door is ajar. Whatever it is that alerts me, I know
something’s wrong.

The
kind of wrong that changes everything.

Stop, I command, and the
song blaring between my ears immediately cuts out, the drumming of my heart
replacing the beat of the music. I flatten a cautious palm against the door and
swing it open wider, revealing the room beyond.

Against
the backdrop of our trashed apartment, my father kneels on the carpet, shaking
hands elevated in surrender, eyes wide behind his broken glasses. A masked thug
holds a gun to his forehead.

Dad’s
gaze darts in my direction. Horror-stricken at seeing me framed in the doorway,
he defies the weapon and risks a warning. “EnvisiTech! Run, Naia!”

The
thug’s head whips around, catching sight of me through the eye holes in his
mask. There’s no mistaking the message reflected there: You’re next.

My
fight or flight response kicks in, my body instinctively deciding on flight,
feet moving of their own accord. Behind me, I hear my father bargaining with
his attacker, pleading with him to leave me alone. I’m not banking on it. I
tear down the hall toward the elevator, and the sharp sound of a single gunshot
reverberates through the air.

11 comments:

So I fully admit to being a sucker for humans having brains connected to computers. I blame the Outer Limits and FEED by M.T. Anderson. So of course I completely loved this! It's a really strong entry and I would totally read it.

I particularly love this line in the query "...and with tangled connections everywhere—synaptic, electronic, between people and sides—making the wrong connection could be deadly."

The writing is solid in the first 250, but I'd like a chance to get to know your mc a little and maybe see a little of her relationship with her dad before all the bad stuff happens. I know I'm not with the popular vote on this one, so maybe just ignore me, but I think the father's murder will have more of an impact, and it will pull your readers in so much more if they have an emotional connection to your mc. Just my two cents.

Great query! I don't usually read sci-fi but this has really piqued my interest.

The writing is really good too, but I'd kind of like to know the MC a little better before she's thrown into this perilous situation. It's kind of hard to care when I don't know her or her relationship with her dad.